Just a few days ago I pointed out to someone I follow on Twitter that a hyper anti drone guy whacking at Obama at The Atlantic lives in a pricey neighborhood out here in Cali --over a $1m for about 1100sq ft homes, and might not be very liberal. It turns out I didn't have to know his neighborhood (for some reason he had it right up there in his profile. I don't know which other authors list that on top of their writings). A short way down his list of articles is "Join My Atlas Shrugged Book Club". Other pieces show that he hates, not only Obama and other liberal leaders, but journalistic liberals too, because they aren't hyper Obama haters as he, so they are supposedly war mongers.
That is exactly how the Libertarians (whose ideals promote racist, ageist, and sexist goals) got the nation handed over to the Republicans in the 2000 election. Clinton had taken action to save Muslims in Serbia when they were being killed by Milosevic's forces first in Bosnia-Herzegovina and later in Kosovo. In fact he was able to save thousands of lives. For the Libertarians though, this was evil warmongering. We must eschew all war!!! War is evil!!! Here, vote for Ralph Nader who hates all war, liberals were told. I'm not accusing Nader of being Libertatian, only that he was used by the Republicans and the eat the poor Libertarians.
And their scheme worked. Enough people voted for Nader in Florida that the state was thrown to George W Bush who himself had declared "Aw won't take the country to war. Aw hate war!" Safe voting was anti Democrat voting many people claimed. And Bush won the election despite getting fewer votes from Americans over-all for president.
But that worked out spectacularly badly for peace lovers and everyone else. What some people forget is that after Bush-Cheney were elected there was virtually nothing that could be done to stop the inexorable march to war. Once basically Libertarian George W Bush was allowed to become president, his drug and alcohol damaged brain was no match for the committed war mongers led by Dick Cheney, and the journalists weren't going to risk their good paying jobs to make it clear what was happening (and they won't the next time either) as a matter of fact they'd caved to their billionaire backers, except for a few columnists who must then be balanced by right wing extremists to shift "the middle to the racist and sexist right."
The Libertarian types did the same to Jimmy Carter cutting him out of government and setting him loose to help the world get rid of some of its worst diseases in the third world at least. But we got Reagan who slashed fat cats' taxes in half claiming that that America needed to compete in the world and keep jobs at home, but he also started offering big tax breaks for businesses to take jobs overseas. No kidding! He was offering tax breaks for outsourcing because we needed more jobs at home (as even he acknowledged). (Reagan, like Bush 43 started with GOP majorities in Congress though the House flipped back in the next election. I know that after the 1994 election every news person with a venue claimed the Dems had held Congress for 40 years, but that was wrong. Journalism is a strange country in which journalists believe in their own popish infallibility a little too much Just the other day a couple of mainstream journalists claimed John Kerry would be the first male Secretary of State in 16 years, conveniently forgetting Colin Powell's 4 year tenure. You'd think that they would be just slightly humble and use a search engine or ask someone who gives a shit to do a Nexis-Lexus search, but no....).
Funny, but now the Libertarians are back to their old games, railing about military action that are very limited compared with a man they got installed into the White House just 12 years ago and again promoting themselves as peace lovers. Again, though follow them to their other beliefs and you'll see they don't care about you, only about their own future in journalism and politics and the big money is paid out to those who get strong right wing governments installed. The neocons will take care of the rest. Since our Democrat hating Libertarians, like other extreme rightists are serving, the desires of the ultra rich, they get paid well once they get into a position where their voices are heard by many, so they fit right in with the Republicans both monetarily and by nature.
What they don't fit in with are people who care about poor people, about racism and sexism, about young people who don't need to be drafted for war, or people in far lands who don't need us setting up major invasions into their nations to do regime change, and Americans who face trying to live through the winter without a home because they are poor, especially children.
Ayn Rand is widely known as a self serving individual who postured for the multi- millionaires and racists that promoted and protected her career because she promoted libertarian style politics, but took Medicare and Social Security the New Deal programs that "Libertarianism" emerged to fight when she got old. (Though Calvin Coolidge, and Hebert Hoover were of the Libertarian spirit as were most Republicans before them, the party with the name was created after the New Deal.
And your anti-drone fan may be taking advantage of war loving billionaires and multi-millionaires to promote their careers if not to simply collect cash on the sly to turn this nation back to the war mongering Republicans like the ones behind simple minded supposedly libertarian style George W Bush. We saw how that worked out, spectacularly badly. 3000 Americans killed in a terrorist attack, over 6000 Americans troops killed in retaliatory and opportunistic neo-con promoted war that did get access to Iraqi oil for the GOP's biggest backers and promised access to $1T worth of rare minerals in Afghanistan, and oh yeah plus financial meltdown that stole the life savings of millions, but protected the balance sheets of bankers who now rail about Social Security and Medicare users who we have proven have paid for their SS benefits. I will have to study and write about Medicare. I'm sure it is paid for, but again the right ignores the interest that saving is worth and their own hampering of Medicare to control it's cost. It also kept the US from charging the same Big Oil companies we went to war for for their extraction of the fuels they take free from our soil.
You don't know this because the same billionaires control our news system, both mainstream, right wing, and now most of the liberal sources through anti-drone fever. There really isn't time to go ballistic about drone strikes, which are not going to be done in the US. Drones were proposed to search for Christopher Dorner, not to kill him.
This is the real reason for the Libertarian party. To get us back to pre-depression era economics and to keep the American electorate misinformed. When poor children died while rich people selected tiaras with large diamonds. And yes, we are half way there, and no you won't be on the benefit side if you war not wealthy or in mainstream media now. There will come a time when they don't even need their Libertarian racist hangers on. And that might not be far off if we don't wake our friend up to how the billionaires are manipulating our minds through mainstream and social media.
Welcome to the new, old Libertarian nation:
Pictures used via Creative Commons License Attribution (CC by 2.0) thanks to Flickr users Official US Navy Imagery (drone launch Pacific Ocean -- top) and Tony Fischer Photography (soup line memorial, DC -- bottom) neither of which have any connection to this blog or blogger.
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